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The Callie Crossley Show

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Mon., May 9 Baseball: America's Most Expensive Pastime?

With steep ticket prices and a season that lasts well into September, baseball has strayed far from the sandlots and the dreams forged in dusty baselines. But hope yet remains: in the game's minor leagues, in pick-up games, and in Latin America and other places, where the news hasn't gotten out yet that America's national pastime is past its prime. A new generation of baseball junkies is being born, and they're ready to take the game from astroturf back to its grass roots. To talk about this, we're joined by Karl Lindholm, assistant professor of American Studies at Middlebury College, and John Wagner, a writer for The Toledo Blade who covers the Toledo Mudhens, a AAA minor league baseball team.

What do you think -- is there a place in the ever-growing stadiums for every person, or has the working person's game long left that behind? What's the last game you watched in the ballpark? Have you checked out the Pawsox, the Lowell Spinners, Cape Cod league, or high school games around your area? Do you miss the crackers jacks, peanuts, pretzels, and beer, the calliope music and the 7th inning stretch? Or are you better off with a little extra money in your pocket?
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ABOUT THE CALLIE CROSSLEY SHOW

Thursday, July 5, 2012

*Originally aired 11/02/12Walter Mosley on The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey

Late last year, Walter Mosley joined us to talk about his latest novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. Mosley’s protagonist, Ptolemy Grey, is an old, ailing recluse living in a dump of a cluttered apartment. His mind, on a downward spiral of dementia, is equally cluttered with a mashup of memories: the death of his wife, the lynching of a friend, his service in World War II. Then everything changes when he’s offered a Faustian bargain—a drug that will restore his brain in exchange for a shorter life. He takes the plunge, hoping mental clarity will help him solve a murder. Though Mosley may be best known for detective novels, his writing spans all genres: literary fiction, science fiction, crime and social commentary. In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Mosely uses threads from all of these styles to tell the story of mortality and morality.